The Thread Where We Discuss Guns and Gun Control

[Farm Boy]

There is also something deeply sick about looking at people who want to die and deciding to take the fast tools away from them. Which is obvious when we look at aged patients in the 'assissted' category, when a upper class accredited professional collects rent from the death, but less obvious when we still want something, like a lifetime of labor, from the person who does it on thier own.

 

[Kyriakos]

A gun isn't really a good tool for suicide, as shown by the very many who shot themselves and then lived.
Certainly there are far more logical methods.

There's something really gross and off putting about this, it's as if the lives of countless people (including children!!!) Pale in comparison to the urge of eternally frustrated weirdo's to own objects that exist for the sole purpose of killing as efficiently as possible

Pretty sure that virtually all of those who come to kill, had very severe issues of their own but no one cared before they killed either. Not caring about "the other" is the norm.

 

[Farm Boy]

That's just what we need, those logical, accredited, classy methods. Somebody's gotta get paid.

 

[Kyriakos]

Not that I would go on about it in this thread, but by "logical" it is meant that as a method, shooting yourself carries an extremely high risk that you will reflexively botch it up, and then live in a far worse state than before.

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, but we're comparing the speed and pain of alternatives. I guess we could go classic hemlock. Then you just suffocate with paralyzed respiratory muscles. But, easier cleanup, and the living probably didn't need to watch anyways. So all good!

But this is an interesting offshoot. Now we have guns as both too good at killing people efficiently and not good enough. I really think the social truth is people think that they deserve a) the working life, b) the warm feeling in the cockles of their heart when the force somebody to "be good," and c) somebody qualified and of appropriate social station administer the process. You know. Rent.

 

[Kyriakos]

It's because typically there is a higher aversion to killing yourself, than to killing others=> while a shooter may have inner conflict and not shoot another as planned, they will definitely have the instinct of self-preservation intervene in self-shooting.

On a related point, afaik there are many euro countries with a higher suicide ratio than the US, despite firegun ownership being far rarer.

 

[Farm Boy]

No, people instinctively balk at killing other people too, generally. It usually requires training to put a bullet on a human. People shoot high without meaning too. Two exceptions: people killing for love will hit thier mark with much less flinching and the 1% of people that are psychopathic hit thier mark as well.

Fair enough point on European rates. I somehow doubt that'll be a talking point that is very popular. Dying is like the realm of "Eastern Europe" or something.

 

[9gkj548hkm20vk79dj689bnj4]

In Texas every 20th person own a M-16, weapons that would make Rambo proud.

you probably mean AR, but I get the confusion.

 

[Fippy]

AR-15 yup.
I was reading a Washington Post article and they wrote:

It soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War, where the weapon earned a new name: the M16.

 

[EgonSpengler]

A gun isn't really a good tool for suicide, as shown by the very many who shot themselves and then lived.
Certainly there are far more logical methods.

Not that I would go on about it in this thread, but by "logical" it is meant that as a method, shooting yourself carries an extremely high risk that you will reflexively botch it up, and then live in a far worse state than before.

Just fyi, this is false.

Reuters, 2 December 2019 - "Firearms most lethal suicide method by far in the U.S."

Overall, 8.5% of suicide attempts resulted in death, with 14.7% of attempts resulting in death in males versus 3.3% in females and 3.4% in people aged 15 to 24 years versus 35.4% in those aged 65 and older. Drug poisoning accounted for 59.4% of suicide attempts but only 13.5% of deaths, while firearms and hanging accounted for 8.8% of attempts , but 75.3% of deaths. Firearms were the most lethal method with 89.6% of attempts with firearms resulting in death, followed by drowning at 56.4% and hanging at 52.7%.

I'll also repost these:

Harvard School of Public Health - "Attempters’ Longterm Survival"

Approximately 7% (range: 5-11%) of attempters eventually died by suicide, approximately 23% reattempted nonfatally, and 70% had no further attempts.

This relatively good long-term survival rate is consistent with the observation that suicidal crises are often short-lived, even if there may be underylying, more chronic risk factors present that give rise to these crises.

I can't find a date on this article, which is one of my pet peeves, but its findings roughly match those cited in the following article from 2016.

The New York Times, 7 November 2016 - "After a Suicide Attempt, the Risk of Another Try"

Now a new study reveals just how lethal suicide attempts, as a risk factor for completed suicide, are. The study, led by Dr. J. Michael Bostwick, a psychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic, tracked all first suicide attempts in one county in Minnesota that occurred between January 1986 and December 2007 and recorded all the deaths by suicide for up to 25 years thereafter. Eighty-one of the 1,490 people who attempted suicide, or 5.4 percent, died by suicide, 48 of them in their first attempt. The findings were reported in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

The discrepancy between the numbers - 7% in the Harvard study and 5.4% in the study published in the Am. J. of Psych. - could relate to the timescales. 25 years in the case of the latter, while the Harvard study was a literature review of 90 different clinical studies, all of which could have had different time scales, and 7% is their mean or median. I think the risk of a 2nd suicide attempt is greatest shortly after the first one (maybe within a year?). I've heard suicidal crises compared to heart attacks and strokes: If you get treatment immediately, your chances of survival are very good, and if you then get treatment for the underlying causes, then chances of another go down quite a bit, but not to zero.

All of which is to say that more guns equals more deaths of people who wouldn't otherwise be dead, and not even Fred Astaire could dance around that. Myths are persistent, but they're still myths.

 

[Farm Boy]

Who is dancing?

The response of "take the tool," in response to that post, is deeply mentally sick.

 

[EgonSpengler]

Who is dancing?

The response of "take the tool," in response to that post, is deeply mentally sick.

If you mean putting restrictions on gun ownership instead of treating the conditions that cause a suicidal crisis, or instead of treating the suicidal crisis, then yes, I agree. But the problems with our healthcare system are myriad, and would deserve a whole other thread, if there isn't one already.

 

[Fippy]

Selling guns & ammo used by highly trained soldiers in wars without much restriction is sick either way..
and has nothing to do with self-defense anymore, or whatever stupid arguments they use to justify their dirty business.

 

[Farm Boy]

Most guns are made specifically to kill humans. And those models contribute a tiny share. Mine will do the trick just fine, they're guns after all, and they're all listed as "obsolete" by that metric.

 

[Fippy]

Most guns are made specifically to kill humans. And those models contribute a tiny share.

What do you mean? There are plenty reports freely available that show how many AR-15 Rifles are sold, and how often they were used in mass killings.

 

[Samson]

I think the point is that handguns cause most deaths. They are also the most useless for a "well regulated militia".

 

[Fippy]

 

[Farm Boy]

Yes, tragedies all, but inconsequential from a public health perspective. Getting the asbestos out of baby power, the vast difference in carcinogen risk of sunlight over agrochemicals, salted sidewalks to prevent hip fractures, medical access, the constant grinding despair of the socially outcast. All consequential. It's not that high of a bar, but the flashy news stories don't clear it.

 

[Lexicus]

Who is dancing?

The response of "take the tool," in response to that post, is deeply mentally sick.

I would describe "take the tools" in this context as a truly "pro-life" position.

View attachment 661446

60 dead in the top one compared to somewhere around 40,000 that whole year. All the mass shootings added together are a relatively small fraction of total firearm deaths in the US, which varies depending on how mass shootings are defined. In 2021, 706 people died in incidents where four or more people were shot, which is probably an expansive definition of mass shootings that includes things like gang shootouts that are not the typical picture of a maniac going to a public place with regular people and trying to kill as many as possible.

Anyway, that same year there were >48,000 total gun deaths in the US of which around 20,000 were murders.

 

[Farm Boy]

I would describe "take the tools" in this context as a truly "pro-life" position.

So is denying assisted suicide. Or prohibiting the termination of a fatal pregnancy. You can certainly shoehorn purposeless cruelty under pro-life accurately enough.